


Les Fleurs Du Mal

by JustMcShane



Category: Doctor Who & Related Fandoms, Doctor Who (1963), Hannibal (TV)
Genre: (as far as Hannibal goes not Doctor Who), Cannibalism, Canon-Typical Violence, Crossover, Gen, Otherstide 2018, dream imagery, murder mysteries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-24
Updated: 2019-03-17
Packaged: 2019-09-26 06:45:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 5
Words: 15,565
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17136953
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustMcShane/pseuds/JustMcShane
Summary: An unexpected detour leads to the Doctor and Ace teaming up with the FBI to investigate a series of disturbingly specific floral-themed murders. But with Ace's increasingly strange dreams, a hyper-empathetic consultant who can't seem to empathize quite so well any more,  and one Doctor Hannibal Lecter in the mix, the murders may be the least of their problems...





	1. affrioler

**Author's Note:**

> For Jane, whose seasonal request was quite simple, as requests go - " _all I want for Otherstide is for you to post Les Fleurs Du Mal_ , _you coward_ ". And considering I've been procrastinating on this particular fic for a good long while now, I feel like that's an entirely fair request. Hopefully the act of posting at least the first chapter will kickstart me into finishing it. And incidentally, many thanks to Jane for letting me bounce all the initial ideas off her when I was first planning/writing this fic.
> 
> General warnings: graphic violence, cannibalism (well, obviously), description of disturbing crime scenes, some body horror.

  _If rape, poison, dagger and fire,_  
_Have still not embroidered their pleasant designs_  
_On the banal canvas of our pitiable destinies,_  
_It's because our soul, alas, is not bold enough!_

~ _Les Fleurs Du Mal_ , Charles Baudelaire

* * *

**one.  
“ _affrioler_ ”**

* * *

 

 

> _9.05 AM  
>  Aberdeen, Maryland_

The old power station at the edge of the city would normally have been utterly deserted.

It had been out of operation for a great deal many years, and had been slated for demolition for nearly half that amount of time. It had become obsolete – the newer power station, located several hundred miles away from the old location, ran that section of the city’s power just as efficiently, if not even better. And yet, today it was absolutely crawling with people – and most of those people in question were the police.

Lower-level officers were busy pinning the standard, cliched ‘POLICE LINE, DO NOT CROSS’ tickertape when yet another car pulled up, adding to the crowd of them that were already there. Out of the car emerged three people – two men; one tall and intimidating and the other rather diminutive and holding his black-and-red umbrella like it was a walking stick; and a young woman who was tugging her badge-encrusted jacket on and hurrying to keep up with the other two.

“Everybody,” said Jack Crawford, striding into the crime scene with his usual unrelenting, hurricane-like authority, “we’ve got company today. Say hello to Doctor John Smith and his assistant – they’re from a special agency, and they’re going to be helping us out with this case.”

There was a general murmur of scattered _hellos_ from the forensic team, and an Asian woman with long dark hair pulled up her lab goggles for a second to smile at them. “Hey. Welcome to the team.”

“Charmed, I’m sure,” said the little man, doffing his straw hat at her.

“Hi,” said his companion, waving cheerily.

“Wait,” said another forensic tech, pausing in his walk towards the main powerhouse of the station, “what do these guys have that Will Graham doesn’t? I thought this was just another Ripper case?”

“So did I, at first,” Jack admitted. “But it looks like the organization that Doctor Smith comes from thinks otherwise. And his credentials were impressive enough that I couldn’t say no.”

“I have some amount of unique experience in this particular type of case,” Doctor Smith allowed, leaning on his umbrella and allowing a small frown to cross his face. “Hopefully it isn’t what I suspect it is, but... better to be safe than sorry, hm?”

“Sounds good enough for me. Also, Will hasn’t checked it out,” said yet another forensic tech, nodding. “So we can’t say it _is_ another Ripper incident or not either way. When’s he getting here, anyway?”

“He texted me a few minutes ago,” said Jack. “Apparently Doctor Lecter’s driving him here. So it shouldn’t be too long. In the meantime – Katz, can you show Doctor Smith and his assistant to the crime scene? I’d do it myself, but – it looks like the press just showed up.”

“Sure, I didn’t get a proper look the first time round,” the Asian woman said, pushing up down her goggles again, and rummaging around in her satchel. “Here, you two – gloves.” She presented the visitors with two sets of rubber disposable gloves, and pulled a slight face as she started walking towards the main building. “You’re going to need them.”

“Cheers,” said Doctor Smith’s assistant, snapping hers on and hurrying to follow. “Hey, Professor; you haven’t told me what’s going on here, anyway. What sort of-?”

“Shh, Ace,” said Doctor Smith, shooting her a warning look as he fell into step with her and the other woman. “I’ll explain later.”

“Oh, well, in that case,” she said with a hint of sarcasm in her voice, and looked over at the woman who was leading them. “I’m Ace, by the way. He’s the Doctor; but you already knew that. Nice to meet you.”

“Beverly – likewise. I don’t mind filling you in, if that’s what you need,” she said. “Jack can be a bit vague on the details sometimes.”

“Oh, Jack’s not the only one,” Ace muttered, and then neatly dodged Doctor Smith’s umbrella and insulted look, both of which came at her in near-synchronicity. “–Professor, I’m only _joking_ –”

He huffed out a fond sort of sigh. “Yes, I know,” he said, and turned to Beverly. “Miss Katz, a brief refresher would be most appreciated. I myself have not been to Minnesota in quite some time, and I’m nearly certain Ace never has.”

“Sure thing,” she said. “All right, so: cliff notes. The Chesapeake Ripper is a notorious uncaught serial killer who’s been killing in sets of three for _years_ around here. He keeps slipping through our fingers, Jack’s getting furious about it, et cetera, so on and so forth. He generally kills in a dramatic, messy, almost _artistic_ fashion – displaying his victims, making it all symbolic – and he always takes surgical trophies from his victims.”

“Bet he’s great fun at parties,” Ace said, hopping over one of the many beds of flowers that were scattered around the premises. Apparently the fact that the power station was abandoned didn’t mean the flowers there weren’t flourishing.

“Very funny. Anyway, there hasn’t been a Ripper strike for... a month or so, now? Which isn’t unusual, sometimes he doesn’t show his face for years at a time, but it’s possible he’s started a new streak. In which case, this is a new opportunity to catch him, if we can find the pattern.”

“That seems entirely reasonable,” the Doctor agreed, nodding.

“What about Graham bloke you mentioned?” Ace asked.

“Oh – Will.” Beverly grinned, pushing hair out of her eyes. “He’s one of our consultants. Well, our main consultant, really. He’s a cool guy. He has a knack for getting into killers’ heads. Super weird, but super helpful.”

“He deconstructs crime scenes; reconstructs what a killer’s motive might have been?” the Doctor said, looking interested. “Fascinating.”

“Uh – yeah, that’s more or less it, actually,” said Beverly. “Except a whole lot more intense, because he kind of – _becomes_ the killer, I guess? But only in his head.” She shrugged. “Actually, I’m going to stop talking about this because I really don’t like that I’m gossiping about him behind his back. Feels wrong, you know?” She stopped just before the massive double-doors that led to the central processing room of the powerplant, and rested one hand on one of the handles. “Right. Here we go – you might want to brace yourselves –”

The Doctor and Ace exchanged glances of trepidation as Beverly grunted and huffed, pushing the solid metal doors open.

There was a second or two as both of them had a chance to take in what, exactly, they were seeing. The Doctor didn’t appear visibly affected by the interior of the room, apart from his mouth tightening ever-so-slightly. Conversely, Ace made a disgusted, horrified noise, and briefly closed her eyes, stepping back and shuddering slightly.

“Yeah,” said Beverly sympathetically. “Not pretty, is it?”

Inside, it looked as if a bomb had gone off; and that bomb had been someone’s actual literal body. The floor was almost completely covered in dark red liquid, and the walls were similarly stained. There were suspicious lumps and parts mixed into the blood and some shining white miscellania sticking out that looked like shattered, scattered bits of bone.The room was positively reeking with the scent of blood, and something else too – something almost sickly sweet.

The body at the center of the room, hanging from a metal rack in front of some broken-down machinery, and positioned in a way that implied biblical crucifixion, was apparently the source of all of the viscera – although it would be hard to imagine how any one human body could contain enough blood and parts to cover the entirety of the (rather large) room in this way. The body’s features were virtually indistinguishable under all of the gore on its face and skin. It appeared as if their chest had exploded outwards – it was torn wide open, with the victim’s internal organs on view for all to see.

“Jesus fucking christ,” Ace said, voice void of any sort of emotion. “Why – what sort of –” She didn’t finish the sentence, apparently unable to come up with anything else to say.

“Language, Ace,” the Doctor chided, although without any actual recrimination in his tone, and accepted Beverly’s silent offer of plastic shoe covers, slipping them on over his brown Oxfords before pulling out a hand-held flashlight from a pocket, and flicking it on. He carefully entered the scene, navigating elegantly through the pools of blood around him until he reached the center of the room and directed the beam of light he was holding at the body.

He audibly breathed in; a sharp intake of breath, and then was silent once more.

After a second, Ace and Beverly joined him, having donned protective equipment of their own. Ace was grimacing, and holding her t-shirt over her nose, but she tapped the Doctor on the shoulder. “Oi, what is it, Professor? I can see that expression on your face. What’ve you seen?”

He turned to her slowly, and then indicated the body, frowning. “See for yourself.”

They swapped places, and she leaned in to examine the chest cavity; although not too close. It took her a second to see it, but then she frowned too. “ _Oh._ Two hearts. That’s...” She squinted. “...not natural, though. It’s not connected to anything, it’s like someone’s just shoved it in there.”

“Can’t see how it would be,” said Beverly, making notes on a pad as she re-examined the crime scene. “I don’t think too many people are walking around with a naturally-occuring bivascular system inside them.”

“Not on this planet, no,” the Doctor said, and then quickly: “But, yes. Somebody rearranged the organs after death to make room for the second one. Rather neatly, actually. Presumably they obtained the heart from someone else... hm.”

“Another thing,” Beverly said, and politely squeezed her way in between the other two so she could point her own flashlight at the open chest explosion. “See those bottom two ribs?” The ribs were indeed also exposed, bones white against the sea of shades of red. “Yeah. They’re not meant to be there. The human body only has twenty-four, and you can see if you look closely – they’ve just been kind of jammed into the flesh.”

“So whoever killed him added an extra heart and some ribs?” Ace asked.

“And another liver,” the Doctor added quietly, directing his flashlight beam to indicate the organ in question.

“I don’t get it,” Beverly said after another few seconds of examining the body. “We’re going to have to take him back to the lab for a proper inspection, but – it looks like those three things are the only bits that were added? Literally nothing else was. It could be... symbolism, maybe, but what the hell is an extra liver supposed to symbolize?”

“Somehow, I don’t believe it is symbolism,” the Doctor said, and glanced around the rest of the room. “Or it’s not quite the symbolism that you’re thinking of.”

“O...kay,” said Beverly. “That was very cryptic, Doctor... Smith, was it?” She paused, briefly distracted. “Wait, are you a Doctor or Professor?”

“Professor of cryptic, unhelpful comments, maybe,” said Ace.

He sighed at that, and said, “‘Professor’ is a nickname. Please, just call me the Doctor. Smith was my mother’s name, probably.”

“Okay then – just ‘Doctor’ it is,” she said, and then, “so, do you have something that you want to share with the class? It sounds like you know what’s going on here.”

“I have a vague suspicion, nothing more,” he said. “I believe it would be more helpful to wait for your Mr Graham’s professional opinion before I begin to share my own theories.”

Beverly shrugged. “All right, sure. Uh – yeah, moving on. About this blood explosion.” She circled the wire frame holding the victim up, and then returned to where she had been standing previously. “I’m guessing that at least some part of this bloodbath came from whoever the second heart and liver was taken from. There’s far too much of it here for it to be all from this poor guy, whoever he was. We’ll need to run tests on that too. Anybody got anything else?”

“Ace?” the Doctor asked, looking at her almost expectantly.

“Uh – I smell blood,” Ace said, wrinkling her nose, “which, you know, kinda obvious where that’s coming from, but I also smell flowers, I think. Can anybody else, or is that just me?”

“No, it’s not,” said Beverly, looking around. “I assumed it was the garden outside, but now that you mention it...”

The Doctor hummed contemplatively, and then angled his flashlight down to the mess of blood and viscera currently carpeting the stone floor. He leaned down, and very carefully plucked one of the larger red-covered lumps from the ground, shaking it carefully to dislodge some amount of blood. He looked at it for a moment, and then held it out to the two women. Now that it wasn’t part of the gory mess covering the floor, it was easier to see its shape.

“A flower,” Beverly said.

“A lily, if I’m not mistaken,” the Doctor agreed gravely, and rubbed a gloved finger across the petal. He squinted. “An orange lily, as a matter of fact. Good nose, Ace.”

“Thanks, I think,” she muttered, and looked around at the rest of the room. “So – the rest of these things floating in the blood-?”

“More flowers,” Beverly confirmed, crouching down to pick up another one from the ground. She shook the worst of the blood off, and held it out. “D’you know what this one is, Doc?”

“Carnation,” the Doctor said immediately. “I believe it may be red carnation, specifically, but it’s rather hard to tell.”

A few more minutes of unpleasant flower-gathering revealed that the room had been more-or-less covered in blossoms as well as blood the whole time – and in addition, there were only actually three types of flowers present – orange lily, red carnation, and begonia. Beverly quickly collected samples of all them, and then the three of them left the building in order to talk somewhere far less unsettling.

“It _could_ be the Ripper,” allowed Beverly, kneeling down to label her sample bags. “Whoever did it certainly has a flair for the dramatic.”

“Indeed,” said the Doctor, removing his gloves and retrieving his umbrella, which he had left leaning on the side of the building. “Although, there is something about the placement of these that seems to...” He trailed off, and tapped the umbrella’s handle against his lips, evidently thinking hard.

“What, you think they’re trying to communicate something through the flowers?” Ace asked. “Like a code?”

“Not quite,” the Doctor said. “The art of flower-arranging has been something of a distinct language of its own since the eighteenth century. It’s not too far of a stretch to consider that the culprit might have been trying to convey some particular meaning with the placement of these flowers that they’ve chosen to leave behind.”

Beverly looked up, her eyes bright with interest. “You wouldn’t happen to know the meanings of these ones, would you?”

“I do, as a matter of fact,” he said. “Orange lilies can either mean hatred and disdain, or passion. Carnations in general tend to symbolize various states of love, while red carnations in particular mean something along the lines of ‘my heart aches for you’. Begonias...” He hesitated for a split-second. “Well, their meaning comes from the translation of their name, as a matter of fact. French. It means–“

“Beware,” said a voice from behind them.

“Yes,” said the Doctor after a brief moment of silence, and turned to face the newcomer. “That would be correct.”

Beverly smiled, also turning raising a hand in welcome. “Oh hey, Doctor Lecter. I didn’t think you’d show up today.”

Doctor Lecter – a tall, elegantly dressed man with an expression of light curiosity, or possibly amusement, writ across his features – inclined his head at her. “My apologies for interrupting,” he said, his accent thick but his English excellent. “Will was with me when he received the call, and I offered to accompany him, both here and back.” He regarded the two strangers with a slightly tilted head. “I do not believe I know either of you.”

“I’m known as the Doctor,” said the Doctor, extending a hand, and Lecter shook it firmly.

“I’m Ace – Ace McShane – hiya,” Ace said, also shaking the taller man’s hand.

“A pleasure to make your acquaintance,” Lecter said, smiling at both of them. “I assume you are here to consult on the FBI’s most recent case, yes?”

The Doctor nodded, and said, “you know flower theory, Doctor Lecter?”

“I dabble,” he said simply, and took a few steps forwards so as to see the interior of the crime scene. He studied it for a second or two, and then turned back to the group. “I see. Most disturbing. You suspect the Ripper, no doubt.”

“The thought had crossed our minds,” the Doctor said. “You think differently?”

Lecter’s eyes drifted off to regard the sky pensively, and then he said, “I believe I will leave the thinking up to Will, when he decides to join us. I find it pointless to begin theorizing when we do not have all the facts at our disposal.”

At this, the Doctor nodded, and then fell silent, regarding the building once more.

“So, what’re you a doctor of?” Ace asked.

“Medicine, initially,” Lecter replied, shifting his full attention to her. “A surgeon, as a matter of fact. But currently I am a practitioner of the psychiatric arts.”

“A psychologist, huh?” Ace bit her lip absently. “I guess it makes sense that you’d be at a murder scene. Someone’s got to analyse the asshole that did it.”

“Psychiatrist, actually,” he corrected her, not ungently.

“Oh – right. Wait, what’s the difference? I thought they were the same thing.”

“Pedantics, some would argue,” he said, mouth curving into a small smile. “In reality, the difference between the two is that a psychiatrist can be classified as a practicing medical doctor, rather than a psychologist, who has merely earned a doctorate degree.”

“Huh, all right,” Ace said, nodding. “So is it an interesting job, then?”

He appeared to seriously consider her question. “Overall, I would say so,” he said. “I have met some truly fascinating people in the psychiatric community. And there is hardly ever a dull moment. No patient is ever the same, which makes for a great deal of variety – the spice of life, you might say.”

Ace grinned. “The Professor says that too. And also, agreed. Repetition is boring.”

“You live an exciting life, then?” Lecter asked. “Or you wish to, at any rate?”

“Oh, I’m definitely living it,” Ace said. “Like you wouldn’t believe.”

Lecter hummed wordlessly in response to that, and they fell into a comfortable silence. After a moment or two, he looked up, noticing someone. “It seems that our guest of honor has finally caught up with us,” he noted.

“Over here!” Beverly shouted, waving, and within a matter of seconds, a tired-looking man with messy hair and glasses approached them. One of his shoelaces was untied. It looked as if he hadn’t slept properly for a great many weeks. He nodded his greetings to both Beverly and Doctor Lecter.

“The illustrious Will Graham, I presume?” the Doctor said.

The man – Will – looked at him for a second. Face impassive. “Not the word I would have chosen. But yes, that’s me.”

“I’m the Doctor,” he said, smiling, and extending his hand to shake.

“Sure,” said Will, and ignored the Doctor’s outstretched hand, glancing over to Beverly and gesturing towards the main power station building. “It’s in there?”

“Yep,” she said, and passed him the same protective gear that she had supplied to the Doctor and Ace. “It’s pretty messy. Be careful in there.”

“When am I not?” Will smiled mirthlessly, and pulled on the gloves and shoe coverings. He looked over at the Doctor and Ace. “You’re new? Don’t come in when I’m working.” Back to Beverly. “I’ll only be a couple of minutes.”

“Take as much time as you need,” she told him. He nodded, and set off towards the main building with a sort of grim certainty in his step. He hauled open the doors, and disappeared into the bloody darkness within.

“Cheerful guy,” Ace said, watching the double doors shut behind him. “What’s _his_ deal?”

“He thinks about killing people for a living, Miss McShane,” Doctor Lecter said, also eyeing the building that Will had just entered. His eyes were dark with something that was very hard indeed to pin down. “I daresay that if you spent countless days perusing the insides of the darkest minds humanity has to offer, you would not be too cheerful yourself.”

Ace bit her lip, looking at him. “Shit. I didn’t mean it like – sorry. He’s your patient?”

“Will is my friend,” he said firmly. “And as such, I worry. His job is not kind to him or his continued wellbeing, as you may have guessed.”

“Yeah, I can imagine,” said Ace, gaze returning to the closed doors. “Or, well – I guess I can’t, but...” She grimaced. “Poor guy. Can’t be fun to get into the head of the person who did _that._ ”

“Yes,” said Doctor Lecter thoughtfully, tapping a finger against his chin. “I do hope it will not disturb him too greatly – it is a distinct possibility. After all,” he added, “there is something about this murder in particular that unsettles even _me_...”


	2. affriander

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings for this chapter - more descriptions of the same crime scene from last time, as well as a particularly vivid Imagination Spot from Will involving quite a bit of blood. Stay safe!
> 
> Side note - I'll try to keep the content warnings at the top of each chapter (or occasionally, at the bottom if it's too spoiler-y) as accurate as I can manage, but I have been informed that my own perspective on some of the stuff I write tends to be... kind of skewed. I tend not to realize the stuff I write is as graphic as it is. Feel free to whack me with a rolled-up newspaper if I step over the line without telling you first.

**two.** **  
** **“** **_affriander_ ** **”**

* * *

 

> _ 9.50 AM _ _  
>  _ _ Aberdeen, Maryland _

The pendulum swung, flashing brightly through the darkness.

_ One.  _ Will opened his eyes, mind descending into calm, and surveyed the scene before him with empty eyes. He breathed in, filling himself up with the mind of somebody who was not him, and became somebody else entirely. 

_ Two.  _ The blood was sucked up, rising from the floor and disappearing into nothingness, leaving rows of flowers, untouched and arranged masterfully on the floor.

_ Three –  _ something stuttered, causing the pendulum to move too fast, too quickly. Something changed. Will found himself stumbling back a step, unsure. The body was gone, and so was the remainder of the blood, although he hadn’t seen them disappear. The flowers were gone too, and when he blinked and looked down he saw that he was carrying a straw basket in one hand. It was filled to the brim, flowers spilling over the edge. He looked up. The wire rack that the body was to be strung up on was already in position, having been wheeled in from somewhere else entirely. He looked down. The straw basket was gone, and he was suddenly left very unsure as to if it had ever been there in the first place -- was he misremembering something? 

He looked down, on a whim, and there was a cat. 

It was brown, small, and was sitting, quite calmly, near the base of the rack – regarding him with intelligent, bright eyes, its tail twitching absently. It could see him – see  _ him – _ in a way that nothing should have been able to at this very moment. 

Will took a deep breath, and closed his eyes again, trying to get back into the mindset. When he opened them once more, the cat was still there – this time with something like amusement in its cool gaze. 

He stared right back at it for a moment, sure that it wasn’t meant to be there. It refused to disappear. 

Will decided to pretend it wasn’t there. He set the pendulum into motion once more.  _ Three.  _

_ – fingers reaching up from beneath, slowly now, softly now. Not too quick or the balance will be disturbed. The balance must  _ not  _ be disturbed. The balance must  _ never  _ be disturbed, for there are some things that even a being of this magnitude cannot interfere with. Nonetheless, there is something here that must be done, be completed to perfection. And perfection it shall be, for there is nothing less than perfect that will do for my chosen opponent. When -- _

\-- Will gasped, taking a step back -- pulling himself forcefully out of the head of  _ whoever  _ that had been. There was something very wrong with whatever he was trying to visualize, on a fundamental and basic level. The perspective was all wrong, for one thing -- it was as if he were watching from the sidelines rather than in the driver’s seat, so to speak. And he  _ still  _ couldn’t see what had actually happened. 

The cat was still there, although it had moved closer to him -- only meters away, really, and still regarding him intently. Eyes bright in the darkness. 

Will ground his teeth together audibly, and glared at the flayed corpse in front of him as if the victim was somehow at fault here.

He closed his eyes, and thought -- thought  _ hard.  _ He probed as deep as he could manage, and then went even deeper, and then deeper once more. 

_ One. Two. Three. _

His head began to hurt almost instantly, and there was the feeling -- subtle at first, but suddenly and sharply increasing to an unbearable, agonizing conception of  _ WRONG  _ \-- that this was not something that he was supposed to be doing.

Will sank deeper and deeper into the well of something that wasn’t quite another person’s mind and wasn’t quite a state of consciousness, and when something inside him decided that he had gone quite deep enough, he opened his eyes, and was gratified to see that the room around him was completely empty. No blood, no flowers, no body. A clean slate, ready to be painted upon.

_ All right,  _ he not-quite-thought to himself.  _ How do we begin? _

Usually it would have been instinctive. He would raise a hand, or a gun, or some other tool or weapon; anything that hadn’t been there previously, and he would begin the act of murder, or torture, or defiling or demeaning or degrading; and the events would just  _ unfold. _

That was not at all what happened.

The cat tensed up, pacing in a circle to come to rest at Will’s side; and Will just waited and watched as blood began to seep upwards, flowing out of the ground and pooling around his feet. Sprouts began to grow from the gory mess -- weaving their way upwards at impossible speeds and growing leaves and blossoms just as fast. As he watched, an entire garden burst into bloom around him -- lilies and carnations and begonias; their plants cycling through an entire lifespan within less than a minute, and dying just as quickly as they began -- leaving only their flowers behind to drop into the dark red soup that covered the entire surface area of the room’s floor. 

There was silence for a second, and then there was a horrific bubbling and hissing sound as something else began to emerge from the thick, unforgiving earth. The head of a man. The torso of a man. The body of a man. Clean and unmarred and ripe for the picking. The ideal specimen for the presentation ahead.

He surprised himself by speaking aloud. 

“Perfect,” he said.

And Will Graham stood in the darkness with an imaginary cat at his heels and a conception that wasn’t at all his own where his mind should have been --

\-- and incredibly, he began to laugh.

(And that, of course, was where all memory ended.)

* * *

 

When Will emerged from the station, blinking at the sudden influx of sunlight, the scene outside was different to when he had left it. The rest of the forensic team had joined Beverly closer to the building, and had even set up a makeshift workstation to sift through the evidence on. Ace was also there, and was throwing herself wholeheartedly into helping with the investigation – she appeared to be engaging in lively debate with Zeller and Price over bloodsplatter patterns. 

The Doctor and Jack Crawford were conversing in low tones, both looking deadly serious. When Jack saw that Will had finished up inside, he waved; indicating that he should come over. Will straightened the collar of his jacket, and went to comply.

On the way, he passed Doctor Lecter, who was seated quite comfortably on a nearby abandoned bench with a sketchbook resting on his knee, and a pencil in his hand. He was sketching with neat, tiny strokes, apparently intent on his work. He looked up as Will approached, although he didn’t stop sketching. “Ah, Will. How was it?”

“Wet,” said Will, and couldn’t suppress a shiver – although he wasn’t entirely sure if it was due to the cold or not. “And disturbingly floral.”

“I see,” he said. “I suspect you will tell me the details later. Those can wait for the moment. Tell me, are you well?”

Will looked down at his sketchbook, and saw, upside-down, that he was drawing flowers. 

“Well enough,” he said. “I’m going to talk to Jack – tell him what I worked out.”

Hannibal nodded. “Tell me when you are finished. I will be glad to drive you home.”

Will gave him a tight smile, said, “thanks,” and headed across the power station courtyard.

Jack turned away from the Doctor again with an expectant look already on his face. “Well?”

“It’s...” Will paused, trying to produce the right words to describe what he was thinking. “...an invitation.”

“An invitation?” The Doctor didn’t seem skeptical; merely intrigued. 

“Either that, or a love letter.” Will smiled humorlessly. “Or both, possibly.  _ Come and play, _ he’s saying.  _ Play with me.  _ It’s... a demonstration, too. Trying to show whoever it is what he’s capable of.”

“Yeah, but how’d he do it?” 

Will flinched a bit at this new voice – he hadn’t seen or heard the girl, Ace, approach. “Sorry?”

“It’s all well and good that our guy’s trying to get a date by murdering people, but do you have any idea  _ how  _ he did it?” She jerked a thumb back in the direction of the station. “You don’t get that amount of blood all over the floor by just stabbing a guy a couple of times.” 

Her bluntness was almost refreshing. Will shook his head. “No, I couldn’t – I mean...” He trailed off, considering the implications of this. “I think the crime scene may have been contaminated somehow,” he said, directing it at Jack. “Things were... blurred, in there. I couldn’t get a proper read on how he did it, just what he was thinking at the time. And barely that.”

Jack grunted, clearly disappointed, and turned away. “Do we have an ID on the body?” he called over to the forensic team.

“Not yet,” somebody called back, their voice distant. “We’re looking over missings persons reports from the last couple days. Nothing yet!”

“It won’t matter,” said Will.

“What do you mean?” the Doctor asked.

“Whoever it is that’s strung up in there – they don’t matter,” Will explained. “Not to him. He picked the victim randomly. It’s the message that’s important, not the paper it was delivered on.”

“We’re going to have to check the victim anyway,” Jack said. 

“I know. But don’t expect to find anything important.” He sighed, and ran a hand through his hair. “I need to know more. Get more information. Maybe then, I can...” He trailed off, and then walked away, in the direction of Beverly and the others, without continuing that thought. 

Behind him, he heard Ace say, softly, “ _ super  _ cheerful guy, huh?” and the Doctor’s whispered, chiding, “ _ Ace,  _ really!”

* * *

 

“I didn’t mean it like that,” Ace protested, watching Will talking to Beverly, and rubbing at her arm, where the Doctor had thwacked her lightly with his umbrella. “I just meant that he looked kind of distracted by whatever he saw in there.” She turned to Jack. “Is he normally like that?”

“I...” Jack paused. “No. Not exactly.”

Ace nodded, and they stood around in awkward silence for a moment or two.

Footsteps signalled the arrival of Hannibal Lecter, who was tucking his sketchbook away into an inside pocket of his jacket. He nodded at the Doctor, returned Ace’s tiny wave of greeting, and said, “ah, Jack. How goes it?”

“Not too well,” Jack said. 

“My sincere condolences, then, accompanied by the equally sincere hopes that the investigation will improve in clarity soon. But that is not why I have approached you. If it wouldn’t be too impolite of me to inquire on a personal matter...?”

“Not at all,” Jack said. “Go on.”

“I have been considering the notion of hosting dinner, for you and your wife,” he said. “It has been far too long since I have done so. Are two two of you free any time this week?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Jack. “Bella is – she is indisposed. I myself am free to come, but she won’t be able to make it.”

“I see,” he said, looking regretful. “Give her my best wishes. I will of course be delighted to entertain you alone, of course, unless...” 

He looked meaningfully across to the Doctor and Ace. There was a beat in which everybody there comprehended what he was implying, and then Jack said, “oh, you should definitely come along, Doctor Smith!” with a genuine grin spreading across his face. “And you too, Miss McShane. Doctor Lecter’s parties are to die for!”

Lecter inclined his head modestly, but he was smiling. “You flatter me.”

“Nonsense – your cooking is some of the finest I’ve ever tasted,” Jack said cheerfully. “Much better than many restaurants I’ve been to, anyway.”

“Indeed?” The Doctor looked interested. “Then I would be delighted to try it. If that’s all right with you, of course,” he added, looking to Lecter for confirmation. 

“I would be delighted to entertain guests. It’s been quite a while since I’ve done so. And, besides – you interest me, Doctor Smith,” Doctor Lecter admitted. “I would very much like the opportunity to get to know you better. I would consider it... a distinct pleasure to do so.”

“Just Doctor, please,” he said. “And I you.”

“Sounds like fun,” Ace chimed in. “You didn’t mention you cooked, Doc.”

“I did not,” he agreed, smiling at her. “But nonetheless, it is one of my greatest passions. I find the act of cooking both relaxing and invigorating, and I enjoy nothing more than sharing the fruits of my creation with others.” He looked back at Jack. “Since dear Bella will be unable to attend, and Doctor Smith and Miss McShane will be taking her place, may I suggest that we expand the guest list and make this a full social event, of sorts?”

“That’s fine by me,” Jack said. 

“Nothing too big, of course,” said Lecter. “Just a few people to flesh things out, so to speak. Will!” The last word was spoken slightly loudly, and succeeded in grabbing Will Graham’s attention. He turned from where he had been discussing something with Beverly Katz, and came over to join them.

“Yes?” he said. He sounded exhausted, and looked it, too.

“I was wondering if you would be available tomorrow evening to dine with me,” he said, touching Will’s arm lightly. “Jack, Doctor Smith and Miss McShane will also be attending. I would very much appreciate it if you could come.”

Will looked as if he were about to decline the offer, but after a long moment, seemed to decide that it would be impolite to do so, and just shrugged. “Fine,” he said. 

Doctor Lecter nodded, apparently pleased by this. “In that case, I will see if Alana Bloom is also available. Six people ought to be just enough.”

“Tomorrow?” Jack asked.

“Yes, if that is suitable. I will need time to procure fresh meat,” he explained for the benefit of everybody present. “I already have a particular dish in mind, but I would like to be sure that I will have the time to prepare it.”

“That seems perfectly reasonable,” said the Doctor, “although, I have a particular dietary restriction that I fear may intersect with your menu of choice.”

“I’m always willing to accomodate,” Lecter said. 

The Doctor tipped him an apologetic smile. “I’m afraid I’m strictly vegetarian.”

Lecter barely blinked. “I see. Thank you for informing me; I should have asked. Miss McShane – is there anything I should be aware of?”

“For me? Nah, I’m not fussy. Or allergic.” She shot him a big thumbs-up. “Anything’s good.”

“You’re  _ very  _ fussy when I’m the one who’s cooking,” the Doctor noted quietly.

She turned and pulled a face at him. “That’s ‘cause you always get distracted and end up burning everything.”

“I hardly think you’re one to talk, considering you do the same frequently,” the Doctor shot back, raising his eyebrows. He was smiling. “Need I remind you of the  _ multiple  _ times you have set fire to the kitchen in the last month alone?”

“Touché,” she acknowledged, and then looked around at everybody else, as if becoming aware of the fact that they were in the presence of others. “Anyway – point is, Doctor Lecter seems to know what he’s doing, and if his cooking’s as good as Jack says–”

“It is,” said both Jack and Will.

“–well, there you go. I think I can trust him with my food, yeah?”

“Your trust in me is very much appreciated,” Lecter said, with a little bow of his head. “I will do my utmost to live up to it.”

Beverly approached, holding several blood-drenched sample bags in one hand. “All right,” she said loudly, “now that we’ve all finished making dinner plans, can someone give me a hand with the equipment? I want to get everything back to the lab before this afternoon.”


	3. fumé

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter gave me an extraordinary amount of trouble, and as such may not be up to the quality of the rest of the fic. Sorry about that - bridging sections always tends to make me want to throw my laptop against the wall. Hopefully future chapters will be quicker in coming out. Jane isn't around to beta at the moment, so any mistakes are, regrettably, my own.
> 
> And a quick note before I continue - this takes place in a slightly divergent timeline, where neither the VNA books or Big Finish audios happened (and neither did the comics or other ranges of books/audios, for that matter). It’s been a pretty long time since Survival, and Ace and the Doctor have just been kind of bumping about the universe for maybe a decade-plus now, righting wrongs, etc. This probably isn’t directly relevant, but I felt it worth mentioning.

**three.** **  
** **“fumé”**

* * *

 

 

> _4.34 PM  
>  _ _???_

Ace entered the TARDIS with a sigh that was half-exhaustion and half-relief. She shrugged off her rucksack and hung it on the hatstand, even as the Professor entered behind her, shutting the door behind him. The console room brightened around them, and the room hummed with life.

“Thoughts?” he asked as he removed his hat.

“Maryland’s a lot more exciting than I thought it would be,” she said. “Also – that murder was _definitely_ a message for you. I mean, two hearts? Two _livers?_ And the extra ribs?”

“Me, or another one of my people,” the Professor agreed absently. “But I agree. With the context...” He looked at the console, made as if to step towards it, and then turned around. “I feel as if I’m forgetting something.”

“Aren’t you always forgetting something?” she asked, grinning, but when she saw the look on his face, she immediately sobered. “...it’s not something important, is it?”

He twirled his umbrella from one hand to another, looking pensive. “Well, considering I can’t remember what it is – it’s rather hard to tell, really.” After another moment of this, he shrugged and quirked a small smile in her direction. “I’m sure I’ll remember it in time. But for now...”

“I was gonna go pull out some books on flower language,” Ace said. “See if we can’t get on top of whatever this bloke’s talking about with the shrubbery.”

“A very good idea,” he agreed. “And I shall run some tests of my own. Miss Katz kindly lent me some samples from the crime scene – there’s plenty of time before tomorrow for research to be done, and I don’t intend to waste a second of it.”

“No rest for the wicked, huh?” Ace said.

“Not while we’re around, no,” he agreed, smiling – and then frowned as something on the console sparked and flickered. The lights all around them briefly dimmed, and then rose back to full power, and then kept on brightening until both of them were wincing and shielding their eyes to avoid being dazzled by the overwhelming intensity of the unnatural glare.

“What’s going on?” Ace asked, stumbling forwards to get a good grip on the edge of the console to steady herself, as the Professor tried to manipulate the dials and switches blindly, apparently without much success.

“Some sort of energy overload,” he called back, and there was a grunt of annoyance, or maybe exertion; followed by the _click-click-click_ of a series of switches being thrown, and then a distant, tinny alarm going off from somewhere deep within the TARDIS. “An outside force – an intruder of some sort –”

She felt her way around so she was right next to him, and said, “all right, so, can we track whoever’s doing it? Reverse the signal?”

“I can hardly do anything if I can’t _see,_ ” he exclaimed, and thumped the console sharply with a fist, which seemed to do _something._ Almost immediately, there was a large explosion, and not the good kind, either. They were thrown back across the console room inelegantly, both hitting the far wall with assorted noises and exclamations of pain.

Ace sat up first, and saw that although the lighting was now back to normal and seeing wasn’t difficult any more; the console was now actually on fire, which was never a good thing.

She staggered to her feet, and went over to the Professor, who was lying near the door, not moving.

“Oi,” she said, shaking his arm, “hey. Professor, get up – I can’t remember where we put the fire extinguisher.”

It took a full thirty seconds of shaking him and prodding him – and in that time the blaze from the centre of the room became more and more acrid and worrying – but he did eventually open his eyes and try to irritably swat her away, which probably meant that he was all right.

“You okay?” she asked, just in case, and added, “also, fire extinguisher?” because that was really getting to be a genuine issue now and she wasn’t entirely sure that he had heard her the first time.

He sat up, frowned, and said something that she couldn’t understand in the least, in a language that was fluting and melodic and that she couldn’t possibly mimic if she tried. She shrugged and shook her head, indicating incomprehension.

There was a beat as they both processed what was going on.

He said something else in the same language – which, she quickly realized, was probably Gallifreyan – and levered himself to his feet with the help of his umbrella. As soon as he was fully upright, he headed over to the hatstand, and pushed it aside to grab the fire extinguisher that was tucked neatly behind it. He tossed it to Ace, who caught it easily, pulled the pin, and started putting out the blaze that had enveloped the console.

“The translation circuit is broken,” he said, although his voice was strange –  his accent no longer Scottish, more like a weird neutral intonation that didn’t seem to be from anywhere in particular.

“I figured, yeah.” The console was more-or-less completely extinguished by now, although it was covered in chemical foam. “What can we do?”

“Fix it,” he said succinctly, then something beautiful yet unintelligible, then, “multimeter.”

She sighed, rolled her eyes, and went to find the multimeter, no doubt buried in the small pile of tools that was always heaped at the side of the console. “No chance that we’re going to be able to track them down by tracking the signal, or whatever?”

“Later,” was the short response. “Fixing this is... priority. It’s a priority.” He grimaced, and then said something in Gallifreyan that she was nearly certain was a curse word judging by the intensity of its pronounciation. She noted it down for later use, mentally, and passed him the multimeter. “Hold this,” he said, thrusting several wires into her hands, and he worked in silence for a moment while she did so.

“You sound weird,” she told him frankly.

He paused to look up at her, and smiled, although it was a bit strained. “So do you,” he said, and then, “hammer.”

Still holding the wires in one hand, she ducked down and felt around through the toolbox until she found the most hammer-like object there. She pulled it out and slid it across the ground to him. He nodded, snatched it up, and brought it down sharply and suddenly against the base of the console. Ace actually jumped back at the sudden noise and the flash of light that exploded all around them – not quite as intense as before, and considerably shorter in duration.

“ _Why,_ ” she demanded, blinking away dark spots as the light faded.

He held up a finger, the universal gesture for _just a moment_ , and clicked two cables into place before reaching out to take the wires from her. “Duct tape,” he said.

She hunted through her rucksack for a second or two, and came up with a half-used roll of multipurpose electrical tape. She tossed it in his direction; he caught it. “Best I can do,” she said. “I can probably find some in the labs –”

“No. This will –” he began, and twisted something off from the console before taking the wires she had been holding, hooking them up with another set of wires dangling from the console. There was another spark, although this time it was only in her head and just made her wince slightly.

“That should hold,“ said the Professor, sounding back to normal, which was a very good thing – hearing him speak with anything but a Scottish accent was nothing short of uncanny. He sat back, and closed his eyes briefly, puffing out a slight sigh of relief. After a second, Ace joined him on the ground, pulling her knees up to her chest. “All right. We done?”

“For now, hopefully.” He sounded sort of tired – not exhausted, but definitely not at his best.

She nodded. “So what just happened?”

“The psychic circuits are damaged,” he said, staring grimly at the broken-off component in his hands. “And I don’t currently have the means to fix them.”

Ace frowned. “And that means?”

“Potentially nothing. Possibly everything.”

She was unimpressed. “All right – and one more time, without the cryptic remarks?”

He gave a small, rueful smile, and then said, “I’m sorry – force of habit. What I mean to say was; without the psychic circuits fully functional, we’ll be defenceless against certain avenues of attack.”

“Like psychic invasion, you mean?”

“Precisely.” He frowned. “Be careful. It’s far too early in the game for anybody to be tipping their hand quite yet. So we can only assume that there’s going to be far worse to come.”

“Right,” said Ace, “cool. Brill. Wonderful.” She tried to remember what had been happening before the unexpected interruption. “Uh  flower language. I’m going to go work on that.”

“Yes,” he agreed, pushing himself up from the ground. “I very much suspect that there’s no time to lose.”

The room felt colder now, somehow, although everything was most likely back to normal already.

“Right, well,” said Ace, standing up  wanting to get things back on track. “See you later, then.”

He nodded, and began hunting for the samples.

“That dinner party’s after this?” she said, pausing in the doorway.

“That was the plan,” he said, “tomorrow night, linearly speaking.”

She sighed. “Should be a nice break, I guess. You know  from all this.”

“Mm. I am looking forward to it.” He shot her a tight, but genuine smile. “Do remember to get some rest.”

“You know, I was about to tell you the same thing,” she said.

His smile relaxed a bit, and then he said, “perhaps we should coordinate, then. Do you have any preferences for dinner?”

She ran a hand through her hair, which was messy and falling out of its previously-tight ponytail. “Mm  not really. Do whatever, I guess.”

“‘Whatever’,” he said solemnly. “All right. Noted.”

Ace leaned on the doorframe. “Research. Dinner. Bed. Life never gets boring ‘round here, does it?”

“See you in an hour,” said the Professor with a small, exhausted laugh, and that was that.

It would be the last pleasant dinner they would have for quite a while.

* * *

 

 

> _9:34 PM_ _  
> _ _Elsewhere_ –

– a monster stood in the middle of a forest, half-blending with the trees and darkness. Its eyes were blank; its expression vacant. A terrible, horrible crime was to be committed by it, and very soon. But that time hadn’t arrived yet, and so it simply waited, the cold night wind ruffling its hair.

Somewhere in the distance, dogs were barking.

And at precisely the same moment, not too far away from there at all – cosmically speaking – opera was playing softly in one of the most well-kept kitchens in the world.

Doctor Hannibal Lecter picked up his often-consulted catalogue of business cards, neatly arranged and sorted for convenience's sake. He began to thumb through them, occasionally pausing to remove one and set it carefully aside.

When he had accumulated enough of these cards, he nodded to himself, and picked up a knife from the countertop –

The opera singer in the recording was pleading for her child not to forget her – to commit her face to memory forever.

– Hannibal smiled, and – although absolutely nobody at all could have made the connection – his smile was entirely too similar to the creature in the wood’s own to be comfortable, or, indeed, coincidence.

Soon it would be time for supper.


	4. brimont

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings: Hannibal-typical dream hallucination things and body horror, including gore; and also some eldritch stuff. 
> 
> Also, now we're getting into the stuff I have been _excited_ for.

**four.** **  
** **“** **_brimont_ ** **”**

 

> _??_ _  
>  _ _????_

Will Graham was dreaming, but was not aware of it – not fully, not yet.

It was the forest again, the endless green-and-brown deep forest of his continuous nightmares. (Of course it was.) He had found himself here, an indeterminable amount of time ago, following the indistinct tracks of a great beast that was somehow always several steps ahead of him. He was barefoot, although he did have the rest of his clothes – light jeans, tattered jacket; thank god for small blessings. Dead leaves crackled with his every step, but whenever he paused or stopped to get hold of his bearings, the world swayed around him and crackled in and out of clarity like a faulty old television set.

The Hobbs cabin loomed before him like a monolith – the Shrike’s nest rising out of the blackness. It wasn’t in the right place. The forest was too thick; the road that would usually be running alongside it nowhere in sight. Lights were on in the lower windows, but nobody was moving around inside that he could see.

Will hesitated, a short distance away; wondering if it was even worth it to enter, and then a scream echoed all the way to his ears – a young woman’s voice, high pitched and terrified – and at that, Will didn’t hesitate. He broke into a run without even consciously thinking about it. The front door of the cabin was already wide open, and when he entered, stopping for the briefest of seconds in the doorway, he saw that the interior of the house was abandoned, as if it had been left here for a great deal many years, and overgrown with weeds and tangled undergrowth.

The scream, again – clearly from upstairs. The attic. Of course it was the attic. Will took the staircase two steps at a time, and as he rounded the corner, he saw that the door leading upstairs was shut, perhaps locked. At the same time, he noticed that the screaming had stopped.

He shouldered open the door, charging up the stairs near-blindly, and stumbled to a stop at the crest of the staircase as his eyes adjusted to the lack of light and he processed, fully, what he was seeing.

There was a girl pinned to the wall, nestled amongst the endless sets of stag horns with uncanny precision, dark, uncombed hair spilling over her face and arms spread-eagled and caught within tangles of bone-white remains. She was barely clothed, and her skin was dirty, encrusted with soil and rotting leaves, like she had been buried for several days and only recently unearthed. Blood trickled down her chest and legs, congealing in a dark, almost black, puddle that was slowly spreading across the floor.

 _Marissa Schurr,_ he thought, and then, incredibly, _this nightmare is getting old,_ but then the girl raised her head slowly, and along with the lighting-like stab of realization – _she’s still alive, somehow –_ came another revelation, just as earth-shattering.

“Abigail,” he said, because her visage was unmistakable, even beneath the layers of dirt enveloping her skin like waves. Her gaze caught him, made him stop in his tracks and freeze up for far too long. It was her that had been screaming, he realized belatedly, but that had died down now to stuttered sobbing, soft and rhythmic, almost mechanical.

“Oh god,” she pleaded, tears carving pale tracks down her grimy cheeks, “oh – oh god, Mr Graham. _Help me._ ”

There were two antlers – only stubs, really – protruding from her chest, soaked over with blood, although he couldn’t quite remember if they had been there when he had arrived. He stumbled forward to meet her, propelling himself into action, and seized her shoulders, intending to pull her off her gruesome mounting. “Abigail,” he said again, and tugged as hard as he could, but she screamed again, a single note of pure agony. When Will looked down, he saw that the antlers were growing from her chest; white bone sprouting and splitting into fresh new shoots that continued to spill eternally outwards.

“ _Please_ ,” Abigail mouthed at him. Blood trickled down her chin. He let go of her shoulders, and tried to grab the ends of the antlers to curb their growth, somehow, but they stung his hands like burning coals, and when he reeled back, panting, his hands were slick with blood.

He spun to see that the rest of the attic was growing too, now – a writhing mass of dead bone and velvet sprouting and budding into life; a grotesque timelapse of the world’s most macabre garden. He saw bone-roses blooming as the dim light from the sole window caught their forms in its pale fingers; saw lilies bobbing up to the surface from the depths of seemingly bottomless pools of blood. Vines crept their way along the rafters, sprouting deadly thorns and tightening pointedly around the house’s foundations, making the room around them shake.

Will found himself cornered in, forced closer and  closer to Abigail, who let out a soft moan as a tendril of living bone looped its way around her ankles, digging into her flesh. “Please,” she repeated, the word bubbling and distorting through a mouthful of blood.

He turned and wrapped his arms around Abigail’s torso, intending to tug her out, but the garden grew tighter and tighter around them until the dim sunlight from outside was completely blotted out by the endless mass of living antlers, and then Will was not Will anymore, and they were in the kitchen at home with a knife to Abigail’s throat, holding her in the same tight embrace.

“I’m sorry,” they said with Will’s mouth and when they cast a glance down at the shining reflective surface of the oven, it was Will’s body that they were inhabiting and Will’s hand that was holding the knife, and when they slashed the knife sharply across Abigail’s throat with a movement that was almost a caress, that was Will’s hand too. And when Abigail crumpled in their arms, wheezing out her dying breaths through a slashed windpipe, Will became Will again, and wondered if he had ever really been anybody else, even as he moved frantically to save Abigail’s life.

“Abigail. Abigail,” he muttered; her name a litany on his lips, sinking down to his knees in the blood-splattered kitchen and cradling her in his lap. His hands went to her throat, pressing hard, but he already knew it was too late. She was too far gone. There was nobody else in the room but him; no former surgeon waiting to take over, no murderous father dying gruesomely in the corner;  just him and the body of the girl he was failing to save. “I’m sorry,” he said, blood spraying his face and neck as he readjusted his hands, “Abigail, I’m so sorry–”

And incredibly, she smiled up at him.

“See,” she whispered, and thorny vines slithered up from the depths of her throat, constricting against her vocal chords as it bloomed, a perfect red rose nestling in her parted lips, and she forced out the word again, choking on the petals as she did so, “ _see,_ ” and then she was gone and the kitchen was gone, and Will was kneeling in the forest; alone again and covered in her blood.

He looked down. Trailing away from where he was standing; hoofprints. They led down the nature-beaten path, to the distance, out of sight completely. He stood up, a puppet jerked into life by an uncertain puppetmaster. Will Graham now knew that he was dreaming. He knew it, was aware of it in dizzying intensity, and also knew, with the same exact certainty, that he couldn’t do anything at all about it. He would have to follow this path to the end; stalk his unknown quarry – or wait for it to hunt him down – until the moment he woke up.

He looked down at his bare feet, and took a step forward, resigning himself to the hunt. He probably would have continued following the tracks until his morning alarm rang, but then the hairs on the back of his neck prickled uncomfortably, and he became aware of the sound of movement in the bushes behind him. There was somebody there. His gun more-or-less materialized in his hands as he drew it upwards to confront the unknown threat, flicking off the safety catch without a second thought. He wasn’t taking any chances.

Another snap, another rustle, and a voice from the darkness – “hello? Anybody out there?”

The voice was familiar, although Will couldn’t exactly pin it down. He tightened his grip on the gun, and when his spoke, his voice was as rusty and uncertain as if he hadn’t said a word for decades. “Put your hands up, and come into the light. Where I can see you.” There was a short silence, like the person in the shadows was deciding whether or not to comply. Will decided to bolster his argument in the only way he really could: “I have a gun.”

There was a sigh. “Oh, well – in that case,” said the voice, and a girl emerged into the clearing where Will was standing. She was fairly short, but carried herself in a manner that suggested that she had a disproportionate amount of strength and knew exactly how to use it. Either that, or she was overconfident. She was wearing mostly black – combat boots, a ruffled skirt, tights, and a jacket that was plastered with pins and badges of all styles and sorts. There was a rucksack slung over her shoulders that was clearly packed to bursting – although with what, he couldn’t tell. She eyed him with slight trepidation. “Oi, do you really need to point that thing at me?”

“Yes,” he said firmly. There was something niggling at the back of his mind... “You’re – I know you. Do I?” Will searched the distant corners of his memory, but came up with a total of nothing.

“Ace,” said the girl, eyeing him. “You’re Will Graham, right? You work with the FBI. I saw you yesterday afternoon.”

“Yes, I – that’s my name.” He dropped the gun, secure in the knowledge that he probably didn’t need it, and that it would reappear when he needed it, and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “How, how are you here? I’m dreaming. This is my dream.”

“Yep,” Ace said simply, popping the _p._ “I _know_ you’re dreaming. So am I. Guess I’m stuck here until either you or I wake up. Or both, maybe.” She folded her arms, gazing around the forest, and then her scrutiny fell back upon him, as if she was finally seeing him for the first time. “Mate, you’re covered in blood.”

“Yes, thank you,” he said, grimacing. “I’m aware. You caught me in the middle of a nightmare, I think. It’s not my blood,” he added, as if that clarification made much of a difference.

“Well, that’s something, I guess.” Ace looked around again, and chewed on her bottom lip. “The Professor says the psychic circuits in the TARDIS are kind of – malfunctioning at the moment, He hasn’t got around to fixing them yet. That’s probably how I’m here. No idea how or why _you’re_ here. In my head. Or maybe I’m in your head?”

“Sure,” said Will, although he wasn’t really sure at all what she was talking about. “I hope you know just how strange this is.”

“Eh,” said Ace, and shrugged. “I’ve had weirder nights.”

There was another _snap_ from the dark forest beyond them, and this time both Ace and Will jumped, startled. As before, Will tugged his familiar gun from nowhere, clicking it into position as he aimed it at the source of the sound. Ace, similarly, tugged what looked like a standard-league baseball bat from her side, whipping it around and into position to rest on her shoulder – her weapon of choice.

“Show yourself,” Ace called, eyes narrowed, and there was a moment of silence broken only by the distant wind rustling the trees around them.

Bright eyes flashed in the darkness, and Will drew in a short breath at the sight of them, suddenly unreasonably terrified. He raised his gun and was all but prepared to fire, but Ace exclaimed, “wait!”

He watched – lowering the barrel minutely, still all-too-ready to fire if need be – as she edged forward cautiously, holding her bat at the ready. She toed at the tall undergrowth, pushing it aside, and then – to his surprise, laughed.

“Don’t worry,” she said, sinking to her knees and dropping her bat, which melted away into the shadows. “It’s just the Professor.”

Will hesitantly lowered his gun all the way, although he kept a firm grip on it with one hand. “Who?” he asked.

She turned her head and grinned at him. “Exactly,” she said. Her eyes flashed bright as she turned back, and there was an uncanny resemblance between their bright, almost unearthly shine, and the eyes that they had seen only moments ago. She held out an arm, extending it into the darkness. Almost instantly, a cat emerged from the undergrowth, quickly and efficiently scaling her arm and crossing over her shoulders. It briefly perched on her right shoulder as she rose up from the ground and looked back to Will – brown, sleek fur, tail quirked slightly to one side, and intensely intelligent eyes, the color of which was utterly impossible to describe.

Ace leaned down to pick up her baseball bat, except it wasn’t a bat any more – it had somehow become an umbrella, black and well-used with a shiny red question-mark handle. She looked at it, and then looked at the cat on her shoulder, and sighed, rolling her eyes, before rejoining Will in the clearing. “He says hi, and also to put down the gun, because,” she affected an absolutely awful accent that he couldn’t recognize in the least, “‘it won’t do you any matter of good, not here or anywhere else’.”

Will blinked at her, and then stared at the cat, who stared back, unreadable. “...he does?”

She laughed, and swung the umbrella back and forth absently. “Nah. He’s a cat right now. Cats can’t talk, stupid. But he’d probably say it if he could.”

The cat meowed softly, as if in agreement – a low, rumbling sound that, incredibly, sounded remarkably Scottish.

“See?” she said, and then grimaced, looking over at the cat. “Professor, you’re kind of heavy. Could you –“

Obligingly, it swivelled; rearranging its weight so it ended up sitting more on top of her rucksack than her before neatly curling its tail around itself.

“– yeah. Thanks.” She looked over at Will, and then pointed into the endless forest sprawled out before them –the opposite direction to the tracks leading away from him. “Look, I don’t know about you, but I’m getting the feeling that we should go that way. You coming with – or d’you have another preference?”

Will glanced the opposite way and although there really wasn’t any way to definitively tell, he could have sworn he saw the visage of the great feathered stag, watching him from the shadows.

“No,” he said, looking back at Ace and the cat balanced on her back. “No preference. Lead the way,” he added, and she did.

Although Ace seemed to be following pure instinct more than anything else – she would frequently stop, and turn in a new, random direction before setting off again – there was no mistaking that the deeper they went into the woods, the darker it became around them. Not just in terms of lack of light, either; the air was becoming heavier and thicker and Will felt his mind becoming dull and sluggish.

Continuously, out of the corner of his eye, Will caught glimpses of something large and feathered keeping pace with them a short distance away. He looked away every time, though, refusing to acknowledge its existence any more than he had to. But every time he saw it again, it had ventured just a little bit closer to them, although it continually shied away from the especially dark areas of the forest. That in particular struck Will as a little odd, although he wasn’t sure why, exactly.

“Friend of yours?” Ace asked, when the stag drew especially close, only a few steps behind them – so close that Will could feel its hot breath on the back of his neck. Neither of them turned to face it, but its presence was undeniable even so.

Will opened his mouth to say ‘no’, but the word inexplicably caught in his throat, and he ended up shrugging instead, unsure. The stag continued to follow them, silent as the grave and just as ominous. The darkness was spreading its hands in front of them, as if in invitation – shadows becoming longer, reaching out to encircle them with bony, indistinct fingers.

“Something’s coming,” Ace said after a while of them walking in silence like this. For a moment, Will was convinced that she meant the stag, but then he realized that she was looking ahead of them, into the complete, all-encompassing darkness that was spread out before them. He squinted in the direction that she was gazing at, but couldn’t see anything.

He was about to ask a question, but was interrupted by a low rumbling sound that grew in intensity and volume, like the earth was waking up, and he had to fight to keep his footing as the ground began to shake beneath his feet. He heard Ace suck in a sharp breath of air through her front teeth, and mutter, “oh, that isn’t good,” and heard the feathered stag behind him snort and toss its head in a decidedly nervous manner, and then the forest before and around them flattened and melted away, very suddenly, leaving them standing at the mercy of the being that emerged before them.

A seemingly infinite body clawed its way out of the earth, a heaving mass of a thousand or more limbs and ragged fur and razor-tipped claws that threatened to blot out the little light that remained from the false moon shining above them. Its elongated, distorted skull – falling somewhere between serpentine and canine in appearance – dripped with a dark, pungent liquid, and strands of what almost appeared to be seaweed. Fire burned within its empty eyesockets, a radioactive impossibility of green and white.

Will’s gun sprung into his hands, even though he knew that it would be no use. He felt, rather then saw, the great black stag that had stalked him (or he had stalked it) for what felt like forever take a step back, and then another, and then – and here Will did look over to it, and stared in open disbelief as the raven-feathered stag simply turned tail and fled.

The creature before them roared, and it was terrifying to behold. It swivelled and thrashed as it struggled to right itself, its neck folding about in impossible ways before coming to rest, staring directly at Ace.

Something in its gaze, although an expression on such a beast was all but impossible to discern, seemed to change. And then it moved faster than he would ever have thought anything could – sending several of its endless multitude of limbs hurtling at Ace.

Ace stumbled backwards a step, but the cat that had been up until now perching on some combination of her rucksack and her shoulder launched itself from her and towards the swiftly-approaching claws. Her eyes widened, and she yelled out an indistinct, completely futile warning in the cat’s direction, even as the creature’s limbs changed direction mid-attack and swarmed towards it instead.

The cat landed on the ground, tail whipping furiously from side to side, and bowed its head just as the monster’s deadly grasp converged around it, enveloping the tiny feline form and obscuring it from view.

Ace yelled out again, and Will had to grab her shoulder to prevent her from dashing into the fray, but almost immediately, there was an almighty flash of purest gold, and the creature’s tendrils sprung away, retracting and retreating as if burnt. Ace tore herself away from Will and dashed towards the cat, who was straightening up, appearing none the worse for wear.

“You _idiot,_ ” she hissed, scooping up the cat into her arms – who looked slightly disgruntled at the rough treatment but endured it, even as she squeezed it in a brief, grateful hug as she hurried back to Will.

“What _was_ that?” Will asked her incredulously, wondering at the same time if it would be worth it to at least _try_ shooting the being in front of them.

“Faith forcefield,” she said distractedly, not really answering anything. “I think. Which means...” She looked over at the beast, which appeared to be regathering its strength for another attack, and then down at the cat. “Is this what I think it is?”

The cat bobbed its head in a grim nod.

“Shit,” said Ace succinctly, and looked up just in time to see almost half of the being’s multitude of limbs bearing down on them with all the force of a nuclear airstrike.

The cat in Ace’s arms straightened up again, tail curling around her arm almost protectively, and directed its intense gaze at the being rising from the earth. The golden light flashed again, curving around the two of them and enveloping them in its warm, bright glow.

As it did, Will’s gun melted to dust and air in his hand as he, with no shield of any sort to protect him, stared certain death in its glowing, inhuman eyes. And within less than a second, he accepted it – accepted that it was going to happen that that there was nothing he could do to prevent it.

And at nearly that precise moment, a thick mass of dark feathers drew level with Will, and when he glanced over he met the dark, oddly empty gaze of the stag that had haunted him for so many long nights. There was a connection there, somehow; a deep understanding that passed between them, and Will became aware of the fact that whatever happened, the stag would not let him die – not here, not like this. Will raised a hand, pressed it to the stag’s side and dug his fingers into the softness of its flank, closing his eyes briefly.

“Please,” he said, inviting its salvation, and as he opened his eyes again, the stag’s feathers came alive; an endless dark mass of silver-beaked ravens that emerged from its flesh and spiralled around them, creating a sphere of darkness and feathers that somehow managed to shield the both of them from the horror looming, monstrous, over the dreamscape.

After a second and an eternity, the ravens cleared, flowing back into the stag’s feathered mane, and to his left, he saw the golden glow retreat. Ace was still standing, but the cat in her arms looked exhausted and barely conscious, like the effort of maintaining the glow for a second time had been too much for it. Will realized that, as far as Ace and the cat were concerned, there was no hope left. He knew, somehow, that the stag’s protection would not extend to them as well under any circumstances – it was for him and him alone.

Ace seemed to realize this too, because she turned to look at Will as the creature reared itself up for a final attack. “None of us will remember this when we wake,” she said, the words strangely hollow, as if somebody else was speaking through her and using her mouth, and then she smiled at him, her eyes shining brightly through the dark, and both she and the cat were engulfed by the creature, and he saw that it was coming for him next. He was frozen in place, unable to think of anything to do.

The stag roughly butted his side, spurring him into action, and he knew without really knowing how that the midnight-black creature beside him wanted him to climb onto it. Will scrambled to comply with this unspoken request, pulling himself up and onto the stag’s vast feathered back. The stag tossed its head, made an unearthly noise that Will didn’t understand in the least, and, with a creature beyond the realms of human comprehension pursuing them relentlessly, began to run into nothing.

The wind stung Will’s eyes so he closed them, and he wove his fingers deeper into the soft feathers, and buried his head into the stag’s neck as the manic rhythm of their frantic dash shook his very bones, vibrating at his soul. And they ran and ran and dashed into eternity and Will closed his eyes even tighter and woke up to the blare of his alarm clock and the most intense feeling that he had forgotten something very important indeed.


	5. rectifier

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warnings at the end. Please do check if you think it may be a problem.

**five.** **  
** **“** **_rectifier_ ** **”**

* * *

> _  
> 8.15 PM_ _  
> _ _Baltimore, Maryland_

The guests arrived at Hannibal Lecter’s house gradually. Will Graham was the first, of course – there before anybody else. He _was_ dressed up, really; although most would have considered it to not be very appropriate dinner party wear.

Hannibal took his coat at the door, mouth curling up a bit and said, “I am not quite done with dinner yet. You could come and keep me company in the kitchen, if you wish?”

“Ah,” said Will, looking acutely uncomfortable at the suggestion, “er – no. I’ll just wait here for everyone else to arrive.”

“But of course,” said Hannibal, and if he was disappointed he hid it remarkably well.

He took his leave, which meant that Will was left to welcome both Alana Bloom and Jack Crawford, somewhat awkwardly, as they arrived – one after the other. The Doctor and Ace showed up last – walking up to the doorstep from the dark street with no indication or sign as to how they had actually got there. When they knocked, Alana Bloom was the one to let them in.

“Doctor Smith,” she greeted, smiling, as Ace shut the door behind them. “I’ve heard so much about you. I’m Alana Bloom – I consult with Jack, sporadically.”

“Just Doctor, please,” he said, and shook her hand. He had foregone his dusty old coat and question-mark jumper for a more dignified black dress jacket and red undershirt. “Another psychiatrist?”

“We’re in great demand, apparently,” she said, and turned to the other newcomer. “And... Miss McShane, isn’t it?”

Ace was wearing a tuxedo. “Everybody’s been calling me ‘Miss McShane’ lately,” she complained lightly, even as she reached across to shake Alana’s hand as well. “Makes me feel like the youngest person in the room. Call me Ace.”

“You _are_ the youngest person in the room,” the Doctor noted, eyes twinkling with amusement.

“Yeah, don’t remind me.” Ace sighed.

At this, Alana laughed, evidently charmed. “Ace it is.”

“Ah,” said Hannibal, emerging from the hallway leading to the rest of the house, “everybody is here. Excellent – do come through. My apologies for not being a more welcoming host. The meal was proving especially hard to wrangle into shape tonight.”

“Not at all,” Alana said, taking the lead in following him, and the party made its way through the house – down a long hallway and into the dining room, which was dimly lit, and altogether more than a little gothic in appearance.

“There would usually be flowers as a centrepiece,” Hannibal said, by means of explanation, “but considering the nature of the crime you are investigating currently, I felt that would be in rather poor taste.”

There was scattered, somewhat guilty laughter from the guests.  

Everybody else took their places around the table. The empty spot at the head of the table appeared to be reserved for their host. Will sat at the spot at the opposite end of the table, and everybody else filled in the spaces in-between.

“Last fancy dinner party I went to, there were human remains in the soup,” Ace said conversationally, which attracted several alarmed looks, one amused glance, and one warning stare – the latter of which came from the Doctor, of course. She quickly backtracked. “– just joking. Er – sorry. Cannibalism jokes are kind of bad to make at dinner, aren’t they?”

“Not to worry,” said Hannibal, and actually grinned; a properly amused smile, showing teeth. “I am not serving soup tonight.”

He re-entered the kitchen, and emerged almost immediately with several small side dishes – salads, what appeared to be freshly made bread, and wines that appeared to be very good vintages.

For a brief time, the people sitting at the table simply made lighthearted small talk as they ate the entrees. Alana Bloom and the Doctor, who were seated next to each other, began discussing their respective psychological backgrounds and beliefs. Jack and Will were talking too, although it appeared to be mostly about the flower-killer case. Ace interjected in both conversations whenever necessary, and exchanged some cheerful words with Hannibal as he flitted in and out of the room. The atmosphere was lively and pleasant, and altogether, everybody – even Will, remarkably – was having a good time.

Shortly, the main course was served.

“ _Saltimbocca alla romana_ , served on a bed of fresh spring beans – and other assorted vegetables,” Hannibal announced with no small amount of relish, and carefully transferred the dishes from where they had been balanced along one arm to the table, in front of each guest. “A dish whose origins can be loosely traced back to Brescia – a Roman city, as the name would imply. It can be translated roughly to mean ‘jump in the mouth’.”

“Looks delicious,” opined Ace, and breathed in as he set a plate in front of her before returning to the kitchen to retrieve the rest of the food. “Smells great too!”

“Mm, yes,” agreed Alana. “What’s in it, Hannibal?”

“I could tell you,” said Hannibal dryly, returning from the kitchen with more plates of saltimbocca, “but then I’d have to kill you.”

There was another scattering of amused laughter that echoed around the table. Even Will smiled slightly at this.

“Veal,” Hannibal said, smiling as well. “Veal and prosciutto, as well as some other seasonings and additions. And for you, Doctor Smith – _pasta all'arrabbiata._ ” In front of the Doctor, he set down a plate of meticulously prepared noodles and sauce. “I hope it is to your tastes. I do not usually cook for a vegetarian palate.”

“I’m sure it will be,” he said. “You appear to be a very accomplished chef, Doctor Lecter.”

Hannibal inclined his head at the Doctor, and took his place at the head of the table, and took up a fork in one hand and a knife in the other. “ _Bon appetit_ ,” he said, by means of invitation.

Everybody dug in. For a few seconds there was silence, as everybody simply enjoyed the well-prepared food; and then conversation began to gurgle up like champagne, and then somebody – Alana – actually broke out the champagne, and soon nearly everyone was talking again – this time with Hannibal gladly taking part. The Doctor almost instantly engaged him in a conversation about moral ethics, which the two of them quickly became absorbed in.

Within ten or so minutes, the atmosphere in the room was vibrant and lively – even Will, despite still talking work with Jack, seemed at ease being there. Alana and Ace were chatting idly and irregularly about nothing in particular. And the ethics debate was still going, although it had evolved somewhat.

“Well, historically speaking, humanity has had a hard time thinking objectively about the – well, human condition,” the Doctor was saying, idly tapping the edge of a fork in a quick, even rhythm against the edge of his plate. “Which I would hypothesize is more by design than coincidence. Although by _whose_ design is anyone’s guess. Certainly not mine.”

“An interesting point. However, in Plato’s _Republic_ –” Hannibal began, raising a finger, but the Doctor had become distracted by something else, and had stopped listening briefly.

“Ace?” the Doctor asked, casting her a glance. “Is everything all right? You’re being awfully quiet.”

Ace had only eaten a few bites of her dinner, and hadn’t even touched the meat yet, but she was staring at the plate with an odd expression on her face. She blinked once, and then twice, and then looked up at him, as if she had only just heard what he had said. “I – what?”

Hannibal also turned; and tilted his head at Ace. “Miss McShane. Is there something wrong with the meal – not to your liking, perhaps?”

“No!” she was quick to exclaim. “No, it’s fine! It’s just...” She trailed off, and then seemed to change her mind. “...is it supposed to taste, like – you know. All metallic?”

A frown slashed its way across Hannibal’s face. “It is not,” he said.

Alana looked at her plate. “Mine’s fine,” she volunteered.

“So is mine,” Jack added. “It tastes excellent, as always.”

“I must have made a mistake – not washed your plate properly,” Hannibal said, and rose to his feet. His tone indicated that he wasn’t the sort of person that had made any sort of mistake in his life, ever; but nonetheless he extended a hand in her direction. “My deepest apologies. I will replace your dinner, if you will give me just a second.”

“Thanks,” said Ace, visibly relieved, and moved to hand him her plate. Before she could even pick it up, however, she coughed – an unpleasant-sounding, hacking cough – and her hand sprung up to her mouth briefly. She quickly recovered, and picked up the plate, quickly passing it over to Hannibal. When he didn’t move to take it, she frowned. “Why’re you staring at me like that?”

“Ace,” said the Doctor, audibly horrified, and sprung to his feet in one quick movement, pushing back his chair. “You’re –”

He didn’t make it any further before she doubled over in coughing again, fingers twitching and causing her to lose her grip on the plate. It clattered to the table, food spilling everywhere. Ace sank back into her seat, tears forming in her eyes from the force of the harsh, involuntary coughing fit. When she removed her hand from her mouth, it was even more obvious that her hands were now splattered with dark blood. She raised her eyes to meet the Doctor’s, terrified.

“Pro –” she began, but didn’t finish. Jack, who had been sitting next to her, exclaimed in alarm, and grabbed her arm as her eyes rolled back in her head and she began to list sideways away from the table. Alana made a noise somewhere between a tiny scream and a choke, but seemed to be frozen in place.

The Doctor had already rounded the table at record-breaking speeds, and was at her side in an instant; lowering her to the ground. “Ace? _Ace!_ Ace, wake up; you need to _wake up –_ ” He grabbed her shoulders, and shook her roughly.

“She has been poisoned,” said Hannibal grimly, eyeing her. “I can smell it, even from here.”

“Alana, call 991,” Jack barked, which was enough to spur her into action. She jolted up from her seat, and stumbled towards the kitchen. Oddly enough, Will rose to his feet as well, running after her.

The Doctor slapped the side of Ace’s face, pulling her properly upright. “ _Ace!”_ he barked, acquiring the sharp, biting tone of a military commander, although his face reflected complete terror.

Her eyelids fluttered, and her hand jolted spasmodically, as if she was trying to grasp the side of his jacket. “I – where?” she gasped. She appeared to be having difficulty speaking, and she coughed weakly again.

“That’s it, Ace – stay here, stay with me,” the Doctor breathed. Ace’s eyes opened properly, although not without some considerable effort, and she moaned indistinctly. She turned to the side and coughed violently, spraying blood all over the carpet.

Hannibal came to kneel next to them, and reached out to grab her chin, tilting it so she was looking directly at him. “Was it in the food?”

“I – I don’t –” she stuttered out, clearly distressed. She was shaking, a constant tremor that

“The poison, Miss McShane,” he repeated, more urgently. “Was it in the food?”

“Think so,” she gasped. At this announcement, Hannibal’s expression went suddenly, terrifyingly dark. Ace let out a tiny indistinct gasp of pain, and her eyes rolled back again as she lost consciousness, despite the Doctor’s repeated commands to _not_ do just that.

“Doctor Lecter,” the Doctor snapped out, losing the gentleness from before and sliding back into ‘military commander’ abruptly. “ _Do something._ ”

Alana stumbled back into the room, clutching the phone. “They’re on their way,” she said. “Ten minutes.”

“I’m afraid there is nothing we can do until the paramedics arrive,” Hannibal said. “Try to keep her conscious, if you can.”

Will was close behind Alana. “It was him,” he said clearly and loudly. “He was here; he was _just_ here–”

“What are you talking about?” Jack demanded.

The Doctor shook her by the shoulders again, desperation clear on his face. “ _Ace!_ ” He closed his eyes, shook his head, and pulled a long, thin metal stick out of his pocket. Twisting it, he pointed it at her forehead. It began to emit a loud buzzing tone, and almost immediately her eyes shot open. She stared around, uncomprehending, and began to shake again. Her lips were turning blue.

“What are you doing?” asked Alana, sounding terrified as she approached the Doctor.

He ignored her. “Shh, shh, it’s all right,” he whispered to Ace, running a hand along her hair.

“I don’t – I don’t _understand,_ ” she pleaded, desperate, sounding almost childlike. “P – Pr – _what’s happening to me?_ ”

He winced; looked pained, and pulled her closer. “Just try to stay calm, Ace. Help is on the way.”

Hannibal had stood up, and was now staring at Will with an inscrutable expression. “ _Him,_ Will?”

“The flower killer,” Will said, and almost violently crossed to their side of the room, where he picked up Ace’s plate and dumped the rest of the food off onto the table. Hannibal’s lips tightened almost imperceptibly at this, but then Will tore the thing that had been hidden underneath the meat, vegetables and sauce, and held it out, staring at it silently. Jack, Hannibal and Alana – still gripping the phone like a lifeline – gathered around him, and stared at the single playing card that had been concealed in the dinner.

The ace of hearts.

* * *

>   _11.04_
> 
> _Baltimore, Maryland_

The ambulance had arrived a short few minutes later, and Ace had been bundled into it as quickly as humanly possible – she had been barely breathing just before they arrived, had been pale and still but still clutching desperately at Doctor Smith’s jacket as he murmured to her encouragingly, meaninglessly, desperately. The dining room floor had been splattered with blood when she had left. The police had been called, the rest of the FBI was already on its way, and Hannibal was overseeing the disposal, sampling and containment of the poisoned food. Everything was under control.

Will stood in the small strip of garden that served as Hannibal’s back yard, staring out at the distant trees swaying in the darkness. Distant sirens and flashing lights from the front of the house tugged at the edges of his mind, but at the moment he had eyes only for the darkness. He knew that the poisoner – the killer, if his instincts were right; the same person who had killed in Aberdeen the previous morning – had left this way, and had probably done so over an hour ago. Tracking him down by following his trail was not a sensible idea.

There was a rustle of movement in the trees beyond his field of vision, and he heard the sound of someone, or something, moving in the direction away from the house rapidly. Will felt his heart speed up.

The yard was open to the woods behind it. He had his gun with him. Nobody was around to stop him.

And ‘sensible’ had never been his strong suit, anyway.

He headed directly towards the treeline, barely pausing to think, because if he thought about what he was doing for even a split second, he knew he would lose the scent of the trail he was on. Before he was even aware of it, he was far enough into the forest that he couldn’t see the lights of Hannibal’s house when he looked back, but when he looked forwards, he could hear the sound of a large, heavy-breathing thing crashing through the undergrowth ahead of him.

His quarry was within reach, he knew. He moved slowly, cautiously treading his way through the forest – barely even daring to breathe. Just a few steps further. Just a few steps further, and...

He pushed back a branch, and he saw it.

The stag tossed its head in the air and snorted, and turned to look directly at him. Its eyes were burning. But for once, Will’s focus wasn’t on the raven-feathered stag – instead, he was staring at the thing looming behind it.

It was huge. It was vast. It was all-consuming. It was –

“Will,” said somebody.

Will blinked, and it was gone.

That same somebody touched his shoulder. He flinched violently, turning to face the somebody – and it was Hannibal, of course it was, presenting the perfect picture of concern. His sleeves were stained faintly with blood, dark in the moonlight, Will could see. He was holding a flashlight, which at this current moment was directed somewhere just to the side of Will’s face – not shining in his eyes, which he counted as a blessing. His headache was raging; his head felt like it was on fire.

“You’re chilled to the bone, Will,” said Hannibal, when he didn’t respond. “Come back to the house – come inside.”

“There was something,” Will said, unsure. He turned his head away, searching for any sign of midnight-black feathers, or burning hooves. There was nothing, not at first, but if he squinted –

Hannibal dug his fingers into Will’s shoulder, hard – forcing him to look back. “There is nothing out here, Will. Nothing and no-one but you and I.”

“I –” Will released a shuddering, shaking breath, and leaned into Hannibal’s grip. “What time is it?”

Hannibal pulled up his sleeve, tilting his watch to catch the light from the flashlight. “It is ten twenty-four,” he said, looking back up to hold Will’s gaze.

“It’s ten twenty-four,” Will echoed, and then said, with slightly less conviction and a bit of hesitancy in his voice, “I’m in Baltimore, Maryland?” At Hannibal’s nod, he said, “and my name is Will Graham.”

“Good.” Hannibal’s grip loosened somewhat, but he didn’t let go. “You need to warm up. Come with me.”

“I couldn’t catch him,” Will breathed, allowing Hannibal to half-guide, half-support him as they began to make their way back in the direction that he had come from. “I – I thought I was following him, but –“

“Following who?” Hannibal’s voice was calm. His voice was always calm, sometimes infuriatingly so, but this time it was good – steady, an anchor.

“The – the flower killer.” _No. No, that wasn’t right._ “No – not... it was the poisoner. The one who killed... Ace.” He swallowed. “I couldn’t catch him. I – I was so close...”

“Miss McShane is not dead yet,” Hannibal reminded him, gently but firmly, leading him along. “And the poisoner is most likely long gone by now, seeing as the crime occurred nearly a full hour ago.” He paused, slightly. “You believe that the poisoner and your current quarry are one and the same?”

Will hesitated. “Yes. No. I – I don’t know, I don’t know what I...” He trailed off, and then said, “how is she?”

“Alive, currently,” he said. “Not well, certainly, but she is alive. Doctor Smith is with her; they are en route to the nearest hospital.”

“She – good.” Will released a single, exhausted sigh. “Good.”

Hannibal hummed in response – a low, even tone. “Yes. It will be. Come – it is warmer inside.”

“Good,” Will repeated – soft, tired – and they left.

Inhuman eyes watched them from the forest as they went.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warnings: implied cannibalism, major character being poisoned rather badly, coughing up blood, implied hallucinations.


End file.
